The Carolina Hurricanes face a lot of questions and gut-checks in 2013-14, but if they want to look at an area of special concern, they should focus on their special teams.

Simply put, the team hasn’t gotten enough out of their power-play or penalty-kill units for quite some time. Let’s take a look at those two situations.

Under-powered play

While it’s possible that things are changing under still-fairly-new head coach Kirk Muller, the Hurricanes have developed a history of blowing bountiful power-play opportunities.

While they were basically middle of the pack in power-play opportunities in 2013, one might chalk some of that up to the upheaval of an abbreviated season (or Muller). Regardless, take a look at the staggering amount of chances Carolina has traditionally received and the Canes’ spotty record of making the most of those chances:

On paper, the Canes should be far more dangerous on the PP. They have enough talented forwards to round out two good-to-great units, with standouts such as Eric Staal, Alexander Semin and Jeff Skinner.

Perhaps one can pin some of the blame on a lack of an elite power-play quarterback, but if history repeats itself, then Muller needs to find a way to make this unit more efficient.

A real disadvantage

The Carolina Hurricanes’ penalty kill unit has been below the league average (percentage-wise) all but one season (2006-07) since 2005-06.

Unlike their power play, the Hurricanes don’t seem to boast the kind of personnel that would make for a great penalty kill. On paper, at least.

Again, it might come back to Muller, though. He’ll earn his keep if he can find a way to make this historically shaky group play at least to a league-average level.

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There are reasons to feel both more optimistic and pessimistic about Carolina’s outlook in 2013-14, but they’d certainly make life easier for themselves if they play better outside of even-strength situations.

New York Islanders forward Josh Ho-Sang provided an interesting take to Newsday’s Arthur Staple, and also reminded observes that, as an international sport, the NHL features some players who might not feel as invested in (or at least as informed about) these debates.

“I think what the NFL players are doing is amazing. It’s good that they’re all sticking together,” Ho-Sang said on Monday. “I mean, I’m Canadian, so I don’t have too much input on the matter itself. It will affect me living in the States, but the biggest thing is it’s unfortunate that the message may have gotten lost a little. Now it’s becoming a battle between the NFL and the president and originally [the protests] started because of police brutality and the mistreatment of different races.”

“Protecting the First Amendment is a huge thing,” Okposo said. “I’m a proud American, and I’m proud to be from the United States. Myself personally, I wouldn’t kneel for an anthem, but I respect those that do.”

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This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the current political climate affect NHL players or people they know.

Players in plenty of sports are navigating tough questions this week. It’s important to remember that athletes can find themselves in tough spots when addressing topics that can be polarizing and/or complex.

Can't imagine being 20 years old, talking to a pack of reporters about controversial protests, knowing that any misstep releases the hounds.

With the regular season about to kick into gear on Oct. 4, it’s certain that there will be more eyes on anthems than ever before. The insights in this post should be useful, whether NHL players kneel, sit, speak, or decide to stick to hockey.

The key: after only being able to study brains of deceased athletes, there’s a chance that living athletes with CTE might eventually be identified.

On face value, that’s great news for player health. Hockey, like other contact sports such as football, is no stranger to careers and lives being derailed by brain injuries.

Of course, the NHL and NHLPA would need to cooperate to make the most of potential progress. If you’ve watched hockey long enough, particularly postseason hockey, you know that certain protocols can stand as great concepts met with hesitant execution.

Westhead expounds on such thoughts, and some of his findings aren’t very pretty.

Players might be hesitant to take such tests if it means that they’ll miss playing time (or even see their careers end). It brings back memories of Peyton Manning willfully sandbagging his baseline concussion test. For better or worse, these guys want to play.

NHL player agent: “If I asked 30 of my players if they would take a test to tell them if they have CTE, I think zero would be interested."

Of course, it’s crucial to realize that potential breakthroughs from this study could take quite some time to trickle into functional practices, even if leagues and players end up being more willing to comply than expected.

Overall, this is promising news. Hopefully such changes could help athletes during their careers and into retirement.

Sprong, 20, was the 46th pick of the 2015 NHL Draft. He’s been generating solid numbers at the OHL, so it will be interesting to see how he converts that to AHL work. Sprong played 18 regular-season games for the Penguins back in 2015-16, notching two goals.

There are some bullet points that can sell Nolan, but the 28-year-old’s production was quite limited at the NHL level. Nolan’s never scored 10 goals in a single season; in fact, he’s only reached 10 points once in his career (six goals and four assists in 64 regular-season contests back in 2013-14).

Overall, it wouldn’t be surprising if a team targeted Nolan as a depth guy, even if his ceiling is limited.

While the Penguins’ entries seem notable for sheer volume as much as anything else, Frank Corrado is another name that stands out.

Corrado was often the catalyst for debates about his playing time (or lack thereof) with the Toronto Maple Leafs, but it doesn’t seem like the defenseman is having much success catching on with the Penguins, either.

Zatkoff, meanwhile, fits in with quite a few other names on this list: possibly prominent in the AHL, only likely to get the occasional cup of coffee in the NHL, at this point.